To say that the summer
was uneventful would be a lie because, in the town of Stars Hollow,
there was always a celebration. However, this summer was dotted with
spontaneity and curious happenings outside of the town's usual
traditions. During the first month, Rachel left even more
unpredictably than her previous departures. Luke seemed indifferent
to her desertion, and no one could pity him because of it; Jess, who
neglected to communicate with Rachel anything more than a three word,
work-related sentence, took her desertion impassively.

Jess failed to resume
his original hours at the diner. In fact, he shirked his duties more
often and vanished from the town two days a week for almost two
months. They saw him disappear late in the morning and reappear late
in the afternoon. During those months, citizens of the community
reported that he took a bus to Hartford. They were both relieved and
jealous to think that he was being a hoodlum in someone else's
town.

Rory completed her
summer school sessions. She acquired forty hours of community service
plus extra hours to begin making up for lost years. Two of her
mandatory goodwill undertakings she did with Jess; one was a book
club that they organized – she forcefully and he grudgingly – for
anyone who wanted to sign up. It lasted an hour; it failed. The other
was another building project, a playground for an orphanage, which
they contributed to for five hours. The rest of her hours she
obtained from Taylor Doose by planning, decorating and participating
in the June/July/August festivals and events. He refused to let
partake in them and Jess ardently opposed involvement in them.

The new school season
approached. Rory worried that Jess wouldn't get enough hours.
Subtly she tried to mention opportunities when she was in his
vicinity, but he ignored them.

-

"Mom!" Rory called,
walking so fast that she was in the kitchen before the door closed,
so fast that her thoughts couldn't catch up. "I'm coming out."

"Out of the closet?
Honey," she warned, tilted her head.

"Out into society,"
Rory said.

"I'd hoped for
grandchildren, but if you're ready to announce to the world that
you're attracted to members of the same sex…"

"No. I went over to
grandma's house today. She had her DAR friends over and, um, they
were talking about this debutante ball that's being thrown."

"Oh boy," Lorelai
exhaled. "I think I would have preferred you coming out of the
closet."

"And before I knew it
grandma was telling me about how important it is for a person to be
properly presented to society. She even gave me pamphlets." Rory
held up two booklets.

"'Pamphlets'
plural?"

"One for you."

"And she just had
these on hand?" Lorelai asked. "Nevermind." She stood up. "I'm
getting you out of this. I'll call her."

"C'mon. It's a
big deal to her; it's not that important to me. So can we just look
at the pamphlets?"

"Oh all right." She
reluctantly took one and opened to the first page. "'The
Daughters of the Daughters of the American Revolution Debutante Ball
– where young girls of good breeding and marriageable age are
paraded around in front of young men of similar good breeding so that
they might marry one of them and have babies of good breeding.'"

"It says I need a
dress," Rory said.

"A psychiatrist."

"Gloves, shoes."

"Straightjacket,
padded walls."

"Uh," Rory stumbled
over the text. "It, uh, says that your father is supposed to
present you at the ceremony."

"Oh. Okay. We can do
that."

"No. No big deal. I
could get grandpa to do it. Or Taylor. Or maybe the cable guy that
was here last week. He looked friendly."

Lorelai got up,
wandered to the living room, looked for the phone. "No. You
shouldn't feel weird or uncomfortable inviting your father. I will
call, I will ask. I'm sure he'll come."

Rory followed her to
the couch, still reading. She frowned. "Um, it also says I need an
escort."

"I'll be your
escort," Lorelai said flippantly as she dialed Chris's number.

"I don't think
that's the kind of escort they're talking about."

"Oh. Well, maybe –
Ah! Pen! I need a pen."

There were no pens in
the living room. Lorelai ran back into the kitchen, found a pen,
redialed, and wrote down the new number from the automated voice.

In the living room,
Rory stared at the booklet. She focused on the gutter created by the
first and second pages, mentally running down a list of people who
she could ask to be her "escort" or – translated into its
socially offensive synonym – her date. The list was short. The
person who would have been at the top had broken up with her. She
couldn't ask him, but her other alternative wasn't approachable
on this subject either. She didn't have to ask him to hear the
sarcastic "no" he would give her or see the sneer that would
accompany that answer.

"Okay, missy,"
Lorelei said cheerily as she flopped down next to Rory, "your
father's coming."

"He is?"

"Definitely. Which
gives us a fifty-fifty chance. Maybe sixty-forty, since he sounded
pretty serious."

"Wow. That must've
been some serious seriousness."

"Yes. Now, onto the
escort."

Rory looked down at the
pamphlet. She began to pick at the edge of the stiff paper.

"Options?"

She had no one else to
ask. She had to ask him.

Determined, Rory stood.
"I don't know. Ask me later."

She strode into her
room, closing the door behind her.

She had a plan.

-

Someone knocked. Not on
the apartment door, but on his bedroom door. He continued writing in
the composition notebook on his lap, glancing at the book at his side
every few words.

The knocker persisted.
"Jess?"

Jess flipped the
notebook closed and pushed it off his lap, rolled off his bed, stuck
the pencil behind his ear, and opened the door. Rory stood with a
piece of paper pulled taut between her hands. She looked serious,
mature. A detached amusement stirred within him, but his face
remained inexpressive.

"I have a proposition
for you," she said properly, as a businesswoman, in a tone that
lacked all intimacy of friendship and emotion, in a way that he
immediately didn't want her to talk to him in.

"Usually the guy is
the one to proposition the girl," he said, countering her formal
tone with casual crudeness.

"My grandmother
invited me to a debutante ball this Saturday. It's important to her
and I've agreed to go. However, I need an escort," she said. Jess
folded his arms, leaned against the doorframe. "I realize that this
isn't your usual thing," she continued impersonally, "but I
don't expect you to agree to this for nothing. I've drawn up a
contract, and I think you'll find that the terms are fair. If not,
you are free to add in your own demands."

She handed him the
paper that she held so tightly. It was typed, titled, aligned,
indented; if there had been a company seal in the corner, it would
have looked like an authentic business document. Jess snatched it
from her, leaned against the doorframe, and pretended to read it. He
glanced at the numbered list, a list of all she offered him.

"No," he said and
held the paper out to her.

"You didn't even
read it," she said, still correct, but disappointment floated along
the undercurrent.

"Nope, but I'm sure
this type of thing is right up bag boy's alley."

He regretted saying it
before the sentence was even all the way out of his mouth. He was
handing Rory right back to Dean, pushing his chance away, pushing
away what he wanted. He couldn't do this, though. He wanted to, but
he shouldn't want to. His participation would be more than anyone
expected. People would then expect more from him, something he didn't
want to feel obligated to offer them.

The altered opinions of
him, although undesirable, he could scowl and bear. The humiliation
that would come from this ordeal, however, he couldn't.

"I can't ask him. I
mean, even if he did agree to go, it'd be… weird. He's–"
Her honesty ended with a sudden fall; she continued punctiliously,
"He is not an option."

Jess looked back down
at the document. As he read the terms he consciously forgot the town,
forgot to care what they thought, now and after. It was a complete
psychological shutdown. He pulled the pencil out from behind his ear,
moved around Rory, brushed arms with her, set the paper down on the
kitchen table. He bent over it, crossed out a couple lines. On one
number of the list, he paused.

"You can do laundry?"

"Cooking, no. But
laundry we are definitely professionals with."

He nodded. At the
bottom of the list, he added his own stipulations, standing over the
paper in a position that wouldn't allow Rory to read over his
shoulder. He felt relief when she didn't try to. He stood and
handed the paper back to her, indifferent, blank, because if he
wasn't then he wouldn't be able to do this. She read them, and,
without hesitation, without worry, without questioning, politely took
his pencil and signed her name to the bottom. With a sneer, he also
signed the paper. When she saw that he had written "Sucker", she
scratched it out and watched him slowly, precisely, sign his actual
name.

On
the date of August 4, 2001, I, Jess Mariano, agree to attend the
Daughters of the Daughters of the American Revolution Debutante Ball
with Lorelai Leigh Gilmore as her escort. I will appear dressed in
the attire expected of me, worn the way expected of the attire. I
agree to remain from 5 p.m. until the time of Rory Gilmore's
departure; I will not leave before this time. I will arrive two hours
prior to 5 p.m. on the aforementioned date at the house of Lorelai
Gilmore.

In
return for my services, I will receive:

1.
One new book or c.d. every two weeks until graduation from Chilton
(If no preference is made the decision will be left to fancy.)

2.
One hour of study time on days before a test

3.
Unlimited access to Rory Gilmore's library of books

4.
Freshly laundered and ironed uniforms on Monday (to be dropped off at
the Gilmore household by 5 p.m. Friday)

5. (crossed out)
Chilton sweaters, sweatshirts, t-shirts and caps

6. A bottle of hair
gel every (crossed out) week (written in by Jess) month

7. (crossed out) A
timetable to balance school and work

8. Bus fare until
graduation from Chilton

9. Lunch money
until graduation from Chilton

10.
(written in by Jess) School supplies – I'll give you the money
for them

11. (written in by
Jess) Computer access

12. (written in by
Jess) One favor, whenever, wherever

"Thank you," she
said brightly, professional demeanor melting away. "Um, come over
tomorrow. We'll go to the mall, get you fitted for a tux because my
grandma would probably combust if we rented one. She's paying for
it, so don't worry. And shoes, and socks. And a tie."

"Oh jeez. Give it
back," he said, holding his hand out for the contract, looking
agitated, completely unhappy, but he didn't consider whether or not
he really felt either of those feelings, only that he should – that
he had to.

"No."

"Hey, if I don't
show up tomorrow, just go without me. I'll meet you there. And if
for some reason you didn't see me, it was because I didn't find
you, not because I didn't show up."

Rory looked at him
sternly. "We're leaving at eleven. If you're not there, me and
my mom will hunt you down, tie you up and throw you into the back of
the Jeep."

He raised an eyebrow,
saying seriously, "Kinky."

Her cheeks turned pink
and she looked down.

"Um, thanks again,
Jess. I, uh, see ya."

She half-waved at him,
with the hand that held the document, and left the apartment. Jess
returned to his room, kicked the door closed, dropped back onto his
bed, resumed his paused task, yet all he could think was that he was
an idiot. He felt like an idiot, but at the same time, he felt
almost, maybe, eager.

-

In front of Men's
Formalwear, he stopped behind Rory. He saw suit jackets tailed and
untailed – mostly black, some gray – all hung precisely on racks.
He saw dress shirts – white, subtle blue, black, modest green –
folded fashionably with stiff plastic tucked into them to keep them
unwrinkled. He saw dress pants, both hanging and folded, black, some
striped, some gray. Mannequins dressed up in black tuxedos frowned at
him behind the glass, greeting him out of forced politeness but not
inviting him in.

Black dominated the
interior, yet it wasn't depressing. It seemed stoic, as if
presenting him with one of the symbols his mind immediately connected
to money, proudly flaunting it.

Already Jess felt
people staring. They knew he shouldn't even be peering inside, but
Rory didn't notice.

He stepped back.
"Changed my mind."

"Too late," Rory
said. When he continued to back away Rory grabbed the excess fabric
at his shoulder and pulled.

As she marched to the
counter, he slipped out of her grasp. He slowly rotated his head
around the store and shoved his hands into his pockets. There were a
few people in the store, older men, dressed casually. Jess detected a
difference between them and him. They belonged and he didn't. Out of
place and obstinately quashing the desire to walk out, Jess languidly
reached out and ran his hand over a low rack of coats, pretended to
look while he made it obvious that he wasn't.

It would have been
easier to leave than to stay. He preferred easier.

Rory returned with an
employee, suited for business. The man had a clipboard and a flimsy,
yellow measuring tape. Jess tried to shut out all feelings of
discomfiture and agitation, embarrassment and nervousness. He sifted
through them so quickly that they swirled into anger, like a pot on
the stove set to high and left to boil over.

"Measure away,"
Rory commanded, bemused, with a gesture of her hand.

"Step up onto the
platform here, please." With a deep glare and two heavy stomps, he
did so. As the man measured his legs, his waist, his torso, his
shoulders, his arms, Jess scowled down at Rory, whose lips lifted
slightly as if she enjoyed watching this. It was an honest enjoyment,
void of the cynicism and malicious ill will that he usually suspected
of others.

"All right. All
done."

Jess stepped down,
finding that someone had turned the dial on the stove down – off –
and that his anger had cooled. He no longer felt judgmental eyes
watching him, waiting for him to leave. He still didn't like being
in the store, though.

"Stop it," she said
lightly, but solemnly, as she delved deeper into the store.

"What are we still
doing here?"

"Bow tie and gloves.
The sooner we find them the sooner we can go."

"Tell you what. You
find them, I'm going."

He pointed to the exit,
lifted his leg as if he was going to move, but he didn't; he waited
for her to protest, and she did. "No, we have to make sure they
fit. You kind of have to be here for that," she said. Jess took a
calculated step back. "C'mon, five more minutes of this, ten more
minutes in a shoe store, and we can skip the sock shopping and go
straight to the bookstore." Jess shook his head, inwardly
entertained by this, wondering if she would stop him if he tried to
leave, wanting her to stop him if he tried. "I saved you from my
mom," Rory said. "She tried to come. She had a camera. She was
going to take pictures and put them in a scrapbook and blackmail you
with them."

"I would have burned
them," Jess said, turning his head toward the blue-gray he saw at
the frays of his peripheral vision. He headed toward it.

"She would have had
doubles," Rory said, following.

Jess picked up a box
from a round table stacked with more of the same boxes, a couple of
them open and displaying the contents.

"Black bow tie." He
tossed her the box, which she caught awkwardly against her chest with
both arms. "And there are," he paused, curled his lip, "gloves
over there."

"Great!" She
bounced over, picked up a pair of gloves linked together by a metal
clip, with a piece of plastic and a price tag hanging off it. She
held them out to him. Jess stared blankly at her. "Oh boy. You are
really making this difficult," Rory said, grabbed his hand, tried
to fit a glove onto it only using her left hand.

"It's not going
on," he stated.

"And you're not
helping."

For a few more moments
he let her hold his wrist, his pleasure concealed, and then he
snatched the gloves from her and tugged on the one she had been
trying to get on his hand.

"Nope, don't fit,"
he said.

Jess dropped them onto
the rectangular table made of a rich-colored wood, glossed with
protective laminate: another pointless decoration in a world he
couldn't comprehend, wasn't part of, was willingly stepping into
for a night. He picked up a medium-sized pair of gloves, slipped one
onto his left hand. It stretched over his hand until the tips hit his
fingertips and could go no further down his wrist. Quickly he tugged
it off and handed them to Rory, saying "here" softly, almost
guiltily.

She took the items to
the register, handed a credit card to the cashier. Jess waited behind
her, hands shoved in his pockets, suddenly placid. They moved on to
the shoe store. The mood passed; his sarcasm returned along with his
defiant participation. By the time they reached Waldenbooks (the only
bookstore in the mall), his calm had plummeted to melancholy and then
soared to a forced enjoyment that became truer the longer he browsed
with Rory, tossed titles back and forth, read back-cover summaries,
collected novels from the shelves to purchase with her grandmother's
credit card.

-

"Short end, long
end," Christopher said, lifting each respectively under Jess'
chin. "Cross, long end behind and up. Make a loop with the short
end, long end down. Loop with the long end, bring it through the
short loop and then adjust. Got it?"

"Yep," Jess nodded,
immediately untying it and yanking it off.

"No one gets it on
their first try."

Challenged, Jess tossed
it back over his neck, crossed, looped and adjusted the bow tie. From
her position on the couch – seated on the middle cushion, her foot
against the edge of the coffee table while she painted her toenails –
Rory shifted her eyes to the side, smiling, a sense of pride dimly
passing through her.

Chris deflated. "Okay,
now I'm jealous."

"Ah, but you're the
one who gets to dance with Rory," Lorelai said, a book poised on
her head, chopsticks between her fingers and a box of Chinese food in
her hand. Rory's smile faded slightly, but she refused delivery on
the disappointment that unexpectedly knocked. "Unless they think to
specify which escort is to dance with the debutante, in which case
someone will 'bump' in to Rory, she'll fall, claim injury and
be unable to dance. This way, Rory will not be forever shamed. Jess
will get to keep what's left of his pride, you'll get to lose
what's left of yours…"

"No, I think I lost
the rest of my pride doing that stint at the Children of the American
Revolution ball."

"Oh yeah. Just give
me a top hat and a cane and I'll be the Planters Peanut Guy."

"You know, Jess, once
you brush your hair you just might be able to pass as a gentleman,"
Lorelai said thoughtfully. "A gentleman with a very accurate
reproduction of the Tommy Lee Jones scowl."

"It's either that
or he's going to be mistaken for a waiter," Chris tossed in.

"Maybe Luke'll pay
me extra for it," Jess mumbled dryly.

"Oh, now there's
the attitude we all love." Lorelai dipped her head and caught the
book in her hand.

Rory noted the sarcasm,
the way her mom forced it to sound good-natured. Her dislike knitted
itself so skillfully into the words that to undo it would mean
following every stitch backward until it all unraveled. To undo the
blanket of loathing would require concentration, patience and
determination on Rory's part. Just seeing Jess involved in this
function, learning to tie a bow tie, learning the codes of high
society introductions, all willingly and with minimal complaining,
had to unweave some part of Lorelai's needlework.

"Whatever. I'm
gone. By the way, I'm changing here tomorrow. See ya at three."
And he left.

"Maybe if we duct
tape his mouth we can pass him off as a gentleman," Lorelai
considered.

The next day Jess
trudged down the stairs, a gray plastic bag slung over his shoulder,
the hanger hooked carelessly by his index finger. He dreaded the
stares from the prying town gossips – most of the town being the
gossips – but he didn't halt. He threw the curtain out of his way
with an unnecessary amount of force, embracing anger over fear, anger
that would give him the excuse to snap or rudely ignore as he chose.
None of the customers looked up, or looked at him strangely, or
looked at him as a prospect for the Stars Hollow Gazette's lead
story tomorrow. Some of his tenseness slipped away, taking with it
some of his angry visage as he relaxed in the safety of going
un-judged.

"Hey, what time are
you gonna get back?" Luke called.

Instantly the anger
rebuilt itself into a protective shield. "When I get back." He
slammed the diner door.

On the street, he
couldn't completely loosen up again. He walked quickly, his
forehead scrunched, his eyes hunting for judgmental passerby. No one
stared too long. No one cared. He felt a modicum of relief.

As he knocked on the
door to Lorelai's house he transferred most of his body weight onto
one leg and put on a face to greet whoever opened the door with the
displeasure they expected to see from him. Rory dressed in everyday
clothes, let him into the house.

"My parents are in
the bedrooms. You have ten minutes in the bathroom before they
invade."

"Hitler and
Mussolini?"

"Like you were
France."

Jess nodded.

"Upstairs. The door
on the right," Rory told his back.

Jess headed up the
stairs and locked the bathroom door behind him. He quickly shed his
outer garments, pulled out the tuxedo, stepped into the pants,
buttoned the shirt. The jacket he set on the counter to put on as
late as possible; the bow tie he hung around his neck under the
collar. He would wait to tie it too. He kicked off his shoes, dug to
the bottom of the bag for his new ones and jerkily knotted them.
Lorelai pounded on the door, demanding that he open it. Jess
leisurely secured the black cummerbund around his waist, packed his
clothes into the bag and rezipped it. He snagged the coat, casually
draped it over his arm with the clothes bag, and opened the door.
Lorelai clicked the button on her camera before Jess could turn away,
flashing him with a bright light.

"Hey, you're not
fully dressed yet," she pouted.

"Huzzah," Jess
snapped, moving around her.

"Are you seriously
leaving your hair like that?"

He whirled around.
"What's wrong with it?"

"It sticks up."

"And?"

"That's just it. It
defies gravity. Anything that defies gravity is frowned upon in the
world you are daring to tread into," she explained as she reached
for his wrist. "C'mon. Back into the bathroom."

Jess jerked his hand
away, stomped into the bathroom, exasperatedly turned on the faucet,
wet his hands, wet his hair. He pushed it all back, flattened, tamed.
Lorelai gawked, her mouth open with a grin that escalated Jess's
projection of hostility. He went downstairs and dropped onto the
couch. He wondered why he had agreed to this ridiculous excursion.
The contract seemed like a weak excuse now, but greed was a plausible
motive, an acceptable reason. Still, he made himself feel miserable
because that was what he should have been, not realizing that his
misery required conscious effort because, really, he wanted to do
this.

Rory came up next to
the arm of the couch. "I can fit a book into my purse, but it has
to be small."

"Okay," he said,
hitting a note of confusion on the tone scale.

"For you to sneak off
and read. Suggestions?"

Jess smiled. "Old
Man and the Sea."

"Oh, no, I'm sorry,
a book I have," she clarified.

"The Invisible
Man."

"Reading the
classics?"

"Rereading. I'm
suddenly in the mood for violent and angry," he said.

"Cheery," she
remarked and went to her bedroom to retrieve it. She knocked on the
door first, though, and Christopher came out, adjusting his tie.

"Yeah, you look more
like a Soc," he shrugged with a silent, open-mouthed laugh.

Jess rolled his eyes,
temporarily disinclined to verbal communication. Rory handed him The
Invisible Man, saying that he could read it on the way there in
the Jeep; he took it then as an excuse to ignore them, flipped to the
first page. They waited twenty more minutes for Lorelai, who hopped
down the stairs while she put on her heels. Jess followed them to the
vehicle, subdued and determined to engross himself in the novel, and
climbed into the backseat next to Rory.

Out of the corner of
his eye he saw Rory lean against the armrest, stare out the window.
Lorelai chatted, irrelevant palaver that he closed his hearing off
to, and he thought he had managed to disappear amongst them until the
conversation died and she tried to rejuvenate it with him.

"So, Jess, school
starts next week."

Jess continued reading,
but the words were no longer coherent sentences.

"Orientation is
Thursday morning," she said. As a close-ended statement, Jess
decided that it required no acknowledgement from him. Lorelai went
on, "Are you and Luke going?"

"Luke is," he
admitted reluctantly, with enough bite to temporarily halt the
conversation.

After a beat Lorelai
asked, "Are you nervous about going to Chilton?"

He rolled his eyes,
frustrated. "Nope."

"Excited?"

"Nope."

Lorelai sighed.
"Scared? Indifferent? Miserable?"

"I'm going," he
said noncommittally, turning the page although he had lost the gist
of the paragraph.

"Oh, well, that's
good," she said and, a smidgen rankled, added, "Hope you like the
uniforms."

Despite the abrupt
change in her demeanor that he knew he was responsible for, he
pretended he didn't notice, didn't care. As the ride stretched
Jess fleetingly considered rectifying the situation, giving her a
straight answer, some sort of honest answer, but he couldn't find a
reason to do so. So he didn't.

Eventually everyone
gave up on trying to coax out some semblance of politeness, humanity,
responsibility – whatever it was they expected from him – and
left him alone, which was just hunky-dory.

As they turned into the
circular entryway, Jess tied his tie quickly and slipped on his
dinner jacket. At the entrance of the building, with a banner hung
overhead proclaiming the event, a valet greeted them and took the
Jeep. Jess scoffed and returned the book to Rory.

An older woman with a
clipboard met them at the door, scolding them for arriving late and
sending Rory upstairs; Lorelai encouraged her daughter to "sliiide"
down the banister. Then the woman turned to Jess and pointed him
through a door to the left, underneath the balcony. He jerked the
door open and immediately several different, expensive smells
attacked his nose, burning all the way through to the back of his
tongue. Two wooden benches placed parallel on the carpet held several
bags of clothes, shoes and hangers. A couple of the boys were
shirtless, one pantless; one tied, untied, then retied his bow tie in
front of the only full length mirror in the room, and continued to
repeat the process, unsatisfied with the outcome of each. As Jess
backpedaled, a balding older man approached him.

"Which debutante are
you escorting?" he asked.

He forced his legs
still. "Uh, Lorelai Gilmore."

The man scanned the
list and checked off something with his pencil.

"You have an hour and
a half to get ready. The bathroom is through those doors," he said,
carelessly pointing behind him with the eraser end of his pencil.
"Don't fight over the sinks."

Jess shot him a half
confused, half mortified look as the old man moved on to address the
entire room, telling the young men to put their belongings against
the wall and not on the benches. Jess moved quickly across the room
and into what he expected to be an empty bathroom. Instead, three
escorts crowded the small space around the sinks, each in an
undershirt, each shaving in front of one of the three mirrors. Jess
turned and left the bathroom, left the dressing room, and ended up in
the ballroom, wandering uncertainly.

The room was
extravagant, decorated with tender flowers and elegant decorations.
Jess looked for a corner out of the way where he could vanish until
the ceremony began. What he found was the bar, which he cut
diagonally across the ballroom to reach.

"Beer," he said
naturally, having learned not to look too guilty or too confident
when asking.

"ID?" the bartender
asked.

"Tequila?"

"ID?" he repeated.

"Vodka?" he asked,
as if he would get the alcohol if he picked the right drink.

"Hey, Jess, making
friends?" Lorelai smiled and turned her head to the bartender,
"Martini."

Jess rolled over to
lean back against the counter, elbows supporting him. Lorelai
mimicked his pose and took a sip of her drink. He narrowed his eyes,
staring ahead.

"Refreshing?"

"Very," she nodded.

He exhaled loudly
through his nose.

"So, any particular
reason that you were out here trying to sneak booze?"

"Yep."

"Which was?" she
drawled patiently.

"Tastes better than
all the Polo and Axe I inhaled," he shrugged, stubbornly refusing
to look at her.

"Ah," she nodded.
"Oh, special delivery from Rory." She opened the handbag she
carried and pulled out The Invisible Man, standing shoulder to
shoulder with him as she slipped it to him in a conspiring manner.
"Slip it into your coat pocket and you just might make it through
the night without liquor. Unless you run into my parents."

He took the book,
dramatizing his reluctance to take it from her to cover up his want
of it. He stuffed it into his inner pocket and pushed off the
counter, heading back to the dressing room.

"Hey, Jess, one more
thing," Lorelai called.

He turned around. The
camera flashed him for the second time that day, leaving a
greenish-purple spot in his vision. His scowl deepened and he stormed
off, bending an arm behind his back and extending a middle finger for
Lorelai to notice or not.

For the next hour he
sat on the edge of one of the benches in the dressing room, hunched
over the novel, steadily ignoring the idle chat the guys had going
behind him. Jess blatantly ignored their pointed comments, aimed at
his appearance, his anti-social inclination, his pedantic pastime. At
five thirty the old man crowded the escorts together to deliver a
speech on the importance of the event, the itinerary of the evening
and threatened to personally throw out anyone he caught drinking or
smoking. Jess read through the entire speech. At five forty-five,
they lined up according to the order in which their corresponding
debutantes were to be presented. Jess came last in line; he didn't
question it. The old man finally noticed Jess's negligence and
specifically told him to put his "damn book away."

They heard a somewhat
muffled version of a speech, polite laughter interspersed. Jess's
fingers itched for a cigarette to occupy his hands. By six o'clock
the line moved, but only one person at a time. When he finally
reached the doorway he peeked around the corner, watched a debutante
and an escort loop arms and walk down a short aisle together. The old
man ushered him out next and he obediently strolled out onto the red
carpet, scouring the accumulation of upper class bodies. He stood
loosely, opposite the rigidity he had seen from the other escort, and
met some of the eyes in the crowd, daring them to question his
presence there.

He watched as her
father guided her down the stairs and kissed her hand. Jess
imperceptibly shook his head, making mental lists of all the various
books, plots and characters Rory reminded him of in the dress, in the
setting. He held out his elbow for her.

"You will pay for the
rest of your life," he whispered to her.

However, Rory didn't
acknowledge him. She concentrated on the few steps she had left to
take and then distractedly floated away from him. For a moment, he
watched with a removed horror as Rory partook in an embarrassing fan
dance, but then he recognized his opportunity to get away. Jess
slipped out of the ballroom and into the darker reception room where
he stuffed himself into the corner of a cushioned couch.

The disapproving stares
people flung at him intermittently throughout the night he secretly
relished, for the same reason a rebel deliberately defies the law and
enters a No Trespassing zone.

Symphonic music waded
out to him as he took out Rory's book, intolerable in its volume
and the way the notes reverberated through the hollow of the rooms,
but which dulled into the background of his hearing as he read. About
forty pages later Rory stuck her head into the room, smiled when she
spotted him, and sat down next to him.

"So what part are you
at?"

"The brawl. He just
stripped."

"Invisible clothes
might have been a perk for him."

"Maybe," he agreed.

Lorelai and Christopher
entered the reception hall, announced that they had Rory's clothes
and that "enough time has passed for us to escape without looking
suspicious."

In the Jeep it was too
dark to read, so Jess grabbed the handbag Rory had put in the seat
between them, stuck the book into it. He looked up; Rory chatted with
her parents, her attention on them. He carefully plucked the camera
from the purse and slipped it into his pocket. Jess lolled his head
back on the seat and pretended to rest.

Jess grabbed his bag of
clothing from the back, slid out of the car, shedding his coat and
bow tie completely. He hurried upstairs, past Luke, and ripped off
the tuxedo, replacing it with the most offensive shirt he had in his
closet and the jeans and shoes he wore over to the house earlier. He
came back downstairs, where Rory and Lorelai had already been served
a late dinner.

"You changed fast,"
Luke noted.

Jess lifted the plastic
lid and retrieved a pair of donuts.

"Oh yeah," he said,
bit into a donut as he leaned forward on the counter, "I'm a
regular Speedy Gonzalez."

"Did you have fun?"
Luke asked.

"You know how they
say there's no such thing as a stupid question?"

"Shut up."

"Well apparently they
do exist," he finished anyway, taking another bite.

"Oh, Luke!" Lorelai
said suddenly. "Do you want me to get you copies?"

"Of what?"

"Of the pictures I
took of Jess in a tux."

Jess smirked and headed
upstairs with his food, glancing over at Rory as he turned. She
missed it.

The evening hadn't
been the humiliating torment he expected; it hadn't been as big of
a deal as he imagined. Except for the live music, it had been almost
bearable.

-

Author's Note
– It's finally out. Sorry it took so long. This chapter was not
easy. But, hopefully, as I no longer have a research paper hovering
over me, I should be able to belt out the next chapter soon.

Thank you, my readers
and reviewers, for waiting patiently! I absolute adore and love all
of you!

Thank you to
Arianna555, one of my beta-readers, who catches all my stupid
blunders. Like spelling Lorelai's name with an 'e' instead of
an 'a.'

And thank you to
Cadenza at Midnight, my other beta-reader, who pointed out
idiosyncrasies, grammatical errors and who made wonderful suggestions
on how to improve sentences and paragraphs.

Next chapter: Finally,
Jess goes to Chilton.

The author would like to thank you for your continued support. Your review has been posted.